‘Convincing enough ‘ordinary’ voters to associate the things they have that make their lives good – their houses, gardens,. cars, kids, education, foreign holidays and so on – with the security the entrenched privileged blesses them with a sure-fire winner. Not only do they vote accordingly, they perceive any threat tot he entrenched privilege as a direct threat to them personally.’
John Smith’s letter is a brilliant summation of how the system remains the system. How the illusion of (binary) opposition exists only to sustain ‘entrenched privilege’. ‘Red’ Ed’s inability to stand up to the repetitive and fatuous claims of ‘no money left’ … ‘New Labour caused the banking collapse’ was repeated so much that it is now considered a fact. The ‘entrenched privilege’ and their systems of subliminal coercion are at the top of everywhere.
His approach also echoes Laurent Berlant’s ‘Cruel Optimism’ which contends that ‘individuals are bound by compromised conditions of possibility’ and that ‘despite deteriorating social, economic and environmental conditions, people still main attached to the ‘good life’. Whatever the ‘good life’ is? 70″ tellys? Igoon 12? Three meals a day?
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